Held under the royal patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Women Establishment, wife of His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Presidential Affairs, UAE; The Sheikha Manal Young Artist Award 2014 will open for applications from 1st July until 31st October, 2014.

First launched in 2006, The Sheikha Manal Young Artist Award is an annual fine arts competition which aims to encourage, recognize and promote emerging artists from the UAE and is especially popular amongst university students majoring in Art, Design and Multimedia. Throughout the past years the award had many achievements within the artistic community, where an enormous number of artists have graduated from different artistic aspects, and gained prominence within the artistic community culturally, globally and locally.

During previous years, the winning artworks from the Award have also been showcased at esteemed events such as Art Dubai, Art4Sight, and more recently have also been part of a special collaboration between the YAA's winning artists and Harvey Nicholas for the 'Digital Style Lab' pop-up shop in Harvey Nichols Dubai, that allowed guests to customize their own shirts from a wide range of creative patterns and images.

On that occasion, Mona Bin Kalli Director of The Cultural Office of Her Highness Sheikha Manal Bint Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum said, We are pleased to announce the official call for entries for the The Sheikha Manal Young Artist Award for 2014, which also marks the 9th edition of this award.

She continued, The Sheikha Manal Young Artist Award is one of the most important events within UAE's ever growing arts and culture scene, as it is serves as a critical platform to recognize talented young artists within the region. Whereas the primary objective of this award is to motivate and encourage artists when it comes to innovation and creativity.

The competition is divided into four categories:
Fine Art Category - Acrylic, Oil, Water Colour, Pastel, Ink, Sculpture, Ceramics, Glass, Print Making, Etching, Mixed Media
Photography Category - Black & White / Coloured Photographs captured by the artist with slight digital modification and printed on flat surfaces including Canvas, Silk, Acrylic Sheets
Multimedia Category - Digital Art, Video Art, Installation
Design Category - 3D Art, Product Design

Furthermore, after the nominations have been announced online, the public/visitors will have a chance to vote for their favourite art work at The Peoples Choice Award through the websites online voting feature.

The application process will be conducted via the competition website www.youngartistaward.ae. Interested participants can follow the instructions on the website to make their online submission. The deadline to apply and upload entries is 31st of October 2014.

The contest is open to all UAE residents, male and female, between the ages of 18 to 35 years. One major criterion for the award is that the artist should not have had an independent solo exhibition previously. Moreover, the recently launched, new value for the Award prize money will be a total AED 405,000. The break down is AED 50,000, AED 30,000 and AED 20,000 cash prize for winner, runner up and second runner up, respectively of the four competition categories. There will also be a cash prize worth AED 5,000 for the winner of the Peoples Choice Award.

Young Artists Award 2014 entries will be reviewed by a distinguished panel of judges comprised of industry professional and practicing artists from the local and international art community. The panel will shortlist fifty art works for an exhibition followed by the winners being announced during the Gala Awarding Ceremony to be held in December 2014.